On the Choice of Coordinates for Control Problems on SO ( 3 )

Many alternative coordinate choices exist for the description of the rotational motion of a rigid body. Not all the choices are equivalent with respect to their domain of validity for accurate attitude representation or the ease they ooer in the control design process. In this paper we present two choices of coordinates which seem to be appropriate for two important control problems: the stabilization of a rigid body with reduced control actuation and stabilization with limited sensor information. Both coordinate sets have the common characteristic of introducing a passive map from the angular velocities to the attitude coordinates.